TV Ads the Stars Don't Want You to See

Jan. 30 -- You don't usually think of Arnold Schwarzenegger as a geek in glasses and an ugly blue jacket, or riding an old-fashioned bicycle and cackling insanely.

But that's how he appears in an ad he made for a Japanese male potency drink. In the ad, his girlfriend gets frustrated with him and gives him the potency drink — apparently at an outdoor bathroom.

Wimpy Arnold is transformed into Superhero Arnold, flying toward the screen in a shower of sparks and juggling people on his hands.

Major stars like Schwarzenegger — and Richard Gere, Leonardo DiCaprio, Sharon Stone, Brad Pitt, Bruce Willis — can make millions from ads in overseas markets, but they don't generally want them to be seen back home.

Slideshow: Celebrities' Foreign TV Ads

It's not just because the ads are sometimes goofy, but according to Bob Garfield, editor of Advertising Age, also because of an unwritten code that hot stars should not have to stoop to advertising.

"If you're at the top of the Hollywood food chain, you just don't do advertisements in the United States. It's considered demeaning. It's considered the sure sign of someone on the way down," says Garfield. "You know, like one step before doing Hollywood Squares."

Web Sites Make Ads Available Online

The ads are shown only in foreign markets, but a few Web sites have popped up that make the ads available to anyone with a computer and a modem — anywhere in the world.

That has gotten some of the stars — or at least their lawyers — concerned. In recent months, Hollywood attorneys have sent a flurry of cease-and-desist letters to the owners of the Web sites. The lawyers say the sites violate laws barring the unauthorized use of their clients' identity for commercial purposes.

Al Soiseth, a Canadian who runs a site called japander.com from his home in Japan, says he has received letters from lawyers for Leonardo DiCaprio and Meg Ryan asking him to remove their ads from his site and threatening him with legal action. Soiseth had been posting Hollywood stars' Japanese ads for five years, but a recent mentions in the American press boosted the traffic to his site to 4 million to 6 million hits a month.